Divine Intercession

Episode One

I knew I would end up someone's villain after contemplating suicide. How I lived and why made me see that I would be someone's bad guy no matter what. I was living with my mother and fiancé.

My life felt like hell. One day, after months of dealing with my mother's heightened criticism and abuse I decided, I had to kill myself. I felt my purpose was in raising my son, but she thought I did nothing of value.

I thought if my mother doesn't like me then- well, what's it worth?

I wrote up the suicide letter. Beforehand, I tried talking to my fiancée—the two women, if not the only two people I wanted love from in this world. I constantly felt like trash.

My choices were to either kill myself or leave. Since I am writing this, you may wonder how I am writing this while rotting in hell?

I prayed to the big guy, The Highest God of the Universe and Multiverse, mindful of how he felt about suicide. We had a long talk about how I felt with his son. When our conversation, I awoke in the middle of the road and was hit by a bus. I died instantly and didn't remember any real pain.

I spent a while in purgatory. Long enough, anyone who would have missed me had moved on or forgotten about me. And my feelings about being dead could finally settle. A lot of spirits stalk around the mortal realm, envious of the material and living. We were all classified as "wanton wastes of potential." With a label like that, it was no surprise many caused trouble or haunted the mortals.

The processing for purgatory is arduous. For me, it felt like a brand-new lifetime—a life of contemplation, reflection, and meditation. Purgatory is vacuous. The parts that aren't overly bureaucratic like spending a lifetime in the DMV or an open void. Those who repent in their time in purgatory are reassigned and bypass into heaven. At the same time, those who cause havoc even in their time of reflection get condemned to hell. The problem is getting those spirits to hell after they leave purgatory.

The day I left Purgatory, Jesus was waiting for me with St. Peter. He pulled me aside from the long line into heaven to offer me the opportunity on his suicide prevention unit.

I serve as a guardian angel for at-risk boys in the suicide prevention unit. I thought I would be in call-center answering prayers. Considering suicide is the third leading killer in men, I am far too busy to have an office job. I guess there were perks to spending more time on the pale blue dot. At least I wasn't in hell. Whenever I'm needed, I got immediately absorbed into the land of mortals.

It's happening again! I don't even have a body, and it still makes me hurl.

A portal of purple energy opens up, sucking me inside. The portal spits me out onto a vermillion orange bridge, where I see a young man around five foot five on the bridge wearing a black hoodie. A dark cloud loomed over his head.

In my ephemeral state, I can see him, but he can't see me. I shook off trans-dimensional travel while he did like most of the boys I find at the bridges. My new friend was staring over the edge, in awe of the distance he may fall. If they did care about pain, most walked away, but he shut his eyes, refusing to look any longer, clenching the bridge.

"Come on, come on, I can't chicken out now."

"It's not quite chickening out if it's a bad idea. More of a reconsideration." I materialized directly next to him. Impossible to be a passerby or a stopped car.

"What, what? Who are you?" he cried out, falling over his feet.

"I'm Carter. God sent me because he thought you were planning to hop over that bridge. "I stared down, whistling at the distance.